Yeshua in Israel’s Feasts – Matzah & Firstfruits
Teaching Outline by Lori Gracey

Unleavened Bread (Matzah) and Firstfruits
We should live a life abounding in peace because Yeshua has separated us from the leaven of sin, raising us up as firstfruits of the promise to come – resurrection.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Matzah) – 15th Nisan, Leviticus 23:6-8

Historic Significance of Unleavened Bread – What it meant for Israel: Deliverance from Bondage (i.e. deliverance from sin [leaven])

1. Occurred during the barley harvest, the 1st of the harvest season

2. Israel’s separation from the bondage of sin (leaven); set apart to holiness
• Deut. 7:6 6 For you are a people set apart as holy for ADONAI your God. ADONAI your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his own unique treasure.

3. Matzah – foreshadowing Messiah (show and pass around Matzah)
a. Bread of affliction – Deut. 16:3 3 You are not to eat any hametz with it; for seven days you are to eat with it matzah, the bread of affliction; for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste. Thus you will remember the day you left the land of Egypt as long as you live.
b. Unleavened – 2 Cor. 5:21 21 God made this sinless man be a sin offering on our behalf, so that in union with him we might fully share in God's righteousness."
c. Striped – Is. 53:5 5 But he was wounded [pierced] because of our crimes, crushed because of our sins; the disciplining that makes us whole fell on him, and by his bruises [stripes] we are healed.
d. Pierced – John 19:1-2, 33-34 1 Pilate then took Yeshua and had him flogged [striped]. 2 The soldiers twisted thorn branches into a crown and placed it on his head, put a purple robe on him, . . . 33 but when they got to Yeshua and saw that he was already dead, they didn't break his legs. 34 However, one of the soldiers stabbed [pierced] his side with a spear, and at once blood and water flowed out.
e. Burnt – Eph: 4:9-10 9 Now this phrase, "he went up," what can it mean if not that he first went down into the lower parts, that is, the earth? 10 The one who went down is himself the one who also went up, far above all of heaven, in order to fill all things.

Prophetic Significance of Unleavened Bread – How Yeshua fulfilled it: The Sinless One sacrifice for the sinful

1. Born in Bethlehem (House of Bread)
• Luke 2:4 4 So Yosef, because he was a descendant of David, went up from the town of Natzeret in the Galil to the town of David, called Beit-Lechem, in Y'hudah,
• Matt. 2:1  1 After Yeshua was born in Beit-Lechem in the land of Y'hudah during the time when Herod was king, Magi from the east came to Yerushalayim

2. Was sinless in all ways
• 2 Cor 5:21 21 God made this sinless man be a sin offering on our behalf, so that in union with him we might fully share in God's righteousness."

3.  Declared himself the Bread of Life
• John 6:35 35 Yeshua answered, "I am the bread which is life! Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever trusts in me will never be thirsty.

4.  Identified with the bread at the Last Super
• Matt. 26:26 26 While they were eating, Yeshua took a piece of matzah, made the b'rakhah, broke it, gave it to the talmidim and said, "Take! Eat! This is my body!"
a. 3 Matzot placed in Matzahtash (we see as Father, Son, Holy Spirit). For Jews, these represent the 2 loaves used for Shabbat plus an additional one for the Bread of Affliction
b. 2nd Matzah – is removed, raised and broken in two with the larger piece wrapped in a napkin & hidden. (This is the piece from the Lord’s Supper.)
c. The hidden piece, representing the Passover lamb, is sought out by the children, “resurrected” and “redeemed” for a special prize (i.e. eternal life.) 

Personal Significance of Unleavened Bread – What it means for us today: We have peace with God because we are buried with Messiah and dead to sin. (Justification – Rom. 3-5)

1. Purge leaven (sin) from our lives
• 1 Cor. 5:7-8 7 Get rid of the old hametz [leaven], so that you can be a new batch of dough, because in reality you are unleavened. For our Pesach lamb, the Messiah, has been sacrificed. 8 So let us celebrate the Seder not with leftover hametz, the hametz of wickedness and evil, but with the matzah of purity and truth.

2. Put off the old, put on the new
• Rom. 6:5-6 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was put to death on the execution-stake with him, so that the entire body of our sinful propensities might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 

3. Afflicted but not crushed
• 2 Cor. 4:8-10 8 We have all kinds of troubles [affliction], but we are not crushed; we are perplexed, yet not in despair; 9 persecuted, yet not abandoned; knocked down, yet not destroyed. 10 We always carry in our bodies the dying of Yeshua, so that the life of Yeshua may be manifested in our bodies too.

4.  Living, holy sacrifices
• Rom. 12:1 1 I exhort you, therefore, brothers, in view of God's mercies, to offer yourselves as a sacrifice, living and set apart for God. This will please him; it is the logical "Temple worship" for you.

The Feast of Firstfruits – 17th Nisan (1st Sunday after Shabbat), Leviticus 23:9-14 

Historic Significance of Firstfruits – What it meant for Israel: Promise of additional harvest yet to come (Barley harvest was first harvest of agricultural year)

1. Occurred 1st Sun. after Matzah (so, 1-6 days after Matzah during 7 days of Matzah) –
• Leviticus 23:11 11 He is to wave the sheaf before ADONAI, so that you will be accepted; the cohen is to wave it on the day after the Shabbat.

2. Became assimilated with pagan fertility rites (Ishtar – Babylonian; Osiris, Oestra . . .) 

3. Firstfruits implies additional fruits yet to come (see Feast Chart, calendar side)

4. Grain of wheat must die to bear a harvest
• John 12:24 24 Yes, indeed! I tell you that unless a grain of wheat that falls to the ground dies, it stays just a grain; but if it dies, it produces a big harvest.

Prophetic Significance of Firstfruits – How Yeshua fulfilled it: Resurrected as God’s firstfruits with the promise of many more to be resurrected

1. Fell on 3rd day after Yeshua was crucified in order to fulfill prophecy
• Matt. 28:1-6 1 After Shabbat, as the next day was dawning, Miryam of Magdala and the other Miryam went to see the grave. . . . 6 He is not here, because he has been raised -- just as he said! Come and look at the place where he lay.

2. Yeshua is our Firstfruits
• 1 Cor. 15:20-23 20 But the fact is that the Messiah has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a man, also the resurrection of the dead has come through a man. 22 For just as in connection with Adam all die, so in connection with the Messiah all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: the Messiah is the firstfruits; then those who belong to the Messiah, at the time of his coming;

3. Yeshua presented the Father with his firstfruits
• Matt. 27:52-53 52 Also the graves were opened, and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life; 53 and after Yeshua rose, they came out of the graves and went into the holy city, where many people saw them.

4. If the firstfruit is good (i.e. holy), so is the remainder 
• Romans 11:16 16 Now if the hallah offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole loaf. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.

Personal Significance of Firstfruits – What it means for us today: We have God’s peace because we are raised with Messiah as new creations in him. (Sanctification Rom. 6:22)

1. Crucified with Messiah, living for him
• Gal. 2:20 20 When the Messiah was executed on the stake as a criminal, I was too; so that my proud ego no longer lives. But the Messiah lives in me, and the life I now live in my body I live by the same trusting faithfulness that the Son of God had, who loved me and gave himself up for me.

2. New creation in Messiah
•  2 Cor. 5:17 17 Therefore, if anyone is united with the Messiah, he is a new creation - the old has passed; look, what has come is fresh and new!

3. We are his firstfruits
• Jas. 1:18 18 Having made his decision, he gave birth to us through a Word that can be relied upon, in order that we should be a kind of firstfruits of all that he created.

4. We have peace through his blood
• Col. 1:19-22 19 For it pleased God to have his full being live in his Son 20 and through his Son to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace through him, through having his Son shed his blood by being executed on a stake. 21 In other words, you, who at one time were separated from God and had a hostile attitude towards him because of your wicked deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in the Son's physical body through his death; in order to present you holy and without defect or reproach before himself.